The Great Lakes Avengers Returns To Marvel Comics

Yesterday we reported about Zac Gorman writing for the All-New All-Different Avengers Annual and how he had more Marvel work in store. Well, here it is. Marvel’s PR has told Nerdist about another new book launching as part of Marvel Now! in October. The return of The Great Lakes Avengers, as created by John Byrne in West Coast Avengers.

By Zac Gorman and Will Robson, here’s the solicit.

GREAT LAKES AVENGERS #1
Written by ZAC GORMAN
Penciled by WILL ROBSON
Cover by WILL ROBSON
Variant cover by MICHAEL ALLRED

“All New, All Different?” No, thank you! New things are bad and different things are scary! Instead, why not join everybody’s least favorite Super Hero team, The Great Lakes Avengers in their brand new—but not too brand new—ongoing series, Same Old, Same Old, Great Lakes Avengers! When the team gets reinstated as permanent members of the Avengers and uprooted to Detroit, the GLA has one more shot at Super Hero glory…but can they answer the call? Do they even have 4G coverage here? Find out!”

And it’s from a local. Gorman told Nerdist,

The Great Lakes region is where I’ve spent the majority of my life. I’ve lived in Detroit area and Chicago and the west side of Michigan and all around the Great Lakes, so it kind of seemed like a perfect fit right off the bat for me. So I just hit the ground running and started coming up with ideas for how I could make the series fresh again.

“You do get a lot of that real-world element of Detroit in the book,” Gorman said. “I’m a Detroiter myself, growing up in the Detroit area and I’m pretty familiar with it first-hand. I think taking some of those real-world issues that seem like they’d be way too grounded for the Great Lakes Avengers — and they are — like gentrification and underfunded city services, and pairing them with the absurdity of a team like Great Lakes Avengers generates a lot of comedy of the book.

“It’s definitely a Detroit book,” Gorman continued. “There’s a lot of Detroit in it, in a way that I think is a relatively accurate depiction of the city. And not just in the RoboCop 1987 version of Detroit.”

There will also be some Easter eggs sprinkled in for Detroit residents to appreciate on a deeper level too, Gorman confirms. “Some of the new characters have Detroit roots and connections to Detroit things,” Gorman explained. “I’m definitely all for working to sneak that stuff in. I was born and raised in the area, so it’s always a part of me.”

But no Squirrel Girl now.

“They also have, as seen on our advance cover, a life-size cardboard Squirrel Girl stand-up because whenever there’s a photo op, if you have Squirrel Girl in the shot, she’s very popular, so it’ll get picked up and people will pay attention to it,” Brevoort explained. “So they’ve got that in case anybody is paying attention to them. That way they can set it up and still seem like they’re Squirrel Girl’s buddies.”

“Technically she’s too nice to really frame it that way, but clearly she’s gone on to bigger and better things!”